Recording invoices and bills, and getting paid
Premium
This is what sets ZeniCash apart from an expense tracker: who owes you, whom you owe, and since when. Customers and suppliers are entities; what they owe or are owed lives in their current account; invoices, bills, credit notes and advances are the documents that move it.
Entities: customers, suppliers, the tax office
Menu › Current accounts › Entities, at the bottom of the screen. Each entity has a tax number, a currency and a payment term: register an invoice and its due date is calculated for you. Whoever has unpaid, overdue documents shows the amount in arrears, in amber, right in the list.
Documents: four tabs
Menu › Current accounts › Documents, at the bottom of the screen:
- To Pay — what you owe suppliers.
- To Receive — what customers owe you.
- Advances — money handed over or received on account.
- Account statement — each entity's current account, movement by movement, with a running balance.
Every document has a side: an invoice issued to the company is professional, one issued to you is personal, and the category list follows that. Since version 1.5.0 the document number is required on invoices, credit and debit notes. From version 1.6.3 the same document cannot go in twice: a second one for the same entity, of the same type and with the same number, is refused — capital letters do not count, so "ft 001" is "FT 001" — and the message gives the date and amount of the one already there. A credit note may carry the number of the invoice it corrects.
Recording a bill in one move
The quickest way: log the expense with the entity and the document number. The app creates the document in the current account and settles it with that payment — and the movement's first attachment, the invoice, goes with the document (a receipt in the second attachment stays with the payment). Recording the document first and paying it later works just as well.
Settling
Pick the document, say which account the money leaves, and the app creates the movement, writes it off against the document and updates the entity's balance. Settle several at once if you like; pay a euro invoice from an account in another currency and the exchange rate is kept on the movement. A document can also be settled without leaving it — the Paid / Received button.
From version 1.7.3, the payment takes the document's side, whatever account pays it: a professional invoice is paid with a professional movement, a personal one with a personal movement. The form shows no Professional button, because the document decides. When the account belongs to the other side — a business invoice paid from a personal account, for example — the box Track on the entity statement (loan) appears, with the name of your business, ticked (Premium; see lending money and keeping the real category). Professional and personal documents are not paid together: selecting both, the app answers "Select only professional or only personal documents to pay them together." — each side is paid on its own, as with documents in different currencies.
Advances and credit notes
An advance is money given or received on account before an invoice exists; it sits in the entity's balance until an invoice absorbs it. A credit note reduces what is owed. A loan to a third party, or a company expense paid out of your own pocket, is covered in Lending money and keeping the real category.
On the main screen: what is coming in and going out
Settings › Formats › What to show on the dashboard › Dues. The main screen swaps the category chart for two cards: To receive above, To pay below.
Each card holds two figures, never one: what is already overdue and nobody paid, and what falls due in the month shown at the top of the screen — the arrows change it. Adding them together would hide exactly the part that costs you sleep. Under them, who the money belongs to, largest first, with anyone in arrears picked out.
Scheduled money — recurring movements and treasury events — has a line of its own and is never added to the two above: to pay means debt, and rent that has not fallen due yet is not debt.
Amounts are shown in your base currency. When a figure is made of several currencies, a line underneath says so — 38,365.00 DZD ≈ 274.04 € — the way the account cards do it, because a converted total otherwise hides where it came from.
Tapping a figure opens the documents behind it; tapping a name opens that entity's current account.
Finding what matters
Most of a real book is settled to zero. Three buttons at the top of Account statement: Balance (all, Outstanding, To Receive, To Pay), Entity (one, with search) and Date (a range).
What ZeniCash does not do
It does not generate or send invoice PDFs. Many countries require certified invoicing software for that; ZeniCash sits next to it, records what was issued and received, and keeps the evidence for the accountant.
Questions
- Does ZeniCash issue invoices?
- No. It records the invoices you issue elsewhere and the bills you receive, tracks payments and balances, and hands the evidence to the accountant. Many countries require certified software to issue a legal invoice; ZeniCash complements it.
- Can an invoice be paid in several instalments?
- Yes. Each payment is a movement that settles part of the document; the document shows what is still open. Several documents can be settled at once, and an invoice in euros can be paid from an account in another currency — the rate is kept on the movement.
- What does a credit note do?
- It reduces what is owed instead of adding to it — treated the way accountants expect.
- What is "Overdue"?
- An unpaid document whose due date has passed shows Overdue and its date; the entity list shows the overdue amount in amber. A document due today is not overdue yet; a document saved without a due date is due on its own date.
Related guides
Checked against ZeniCash 1.5.0 on 2026-09-10. Where a feature is Premium, it says so.